I LOOKED AROUND AND EVERYONE WAS laughing at everything he was saying. I had to admit, he was funny and knew how to work a crowd; however, I knew what he really was like when he did not have an audience. You see, he was married to a friend of mine. I was not too keen on the idea of her marrying him, mostly because they had only been dating for a short while. There was something about him that rubbed me the wrong way, though that is not exactly what I said when my friend asked me what I thought of him. All I said was I did not feel a connection with him, as if he always had his guard up around me. I would never do anything to upset my friend and if she felt that strong about wanting to marry this man, it was not up to me to voice my negative opinion. They had a small wedding since both had been married previously. After the ceremony we had appetizers and desserts at a hall they rented out for the occasion. In the beginning of their marriage, she would mention from time to time a thing or two about how angry he would get over things he had no control of. As the months passed, she would mention he would wake her at 5 am on a Saturday because he decided that was the time they needed to clean their house. When she said she was not ready, he would yell at her, and I knew for certainty something was off with him and she needed to get out of the relationship. Though I came to this conclusion first, she came around to it within a matter of months.      HER EXPERIENCE HAPPENED A YEAR AFTER I had a similar revelation in my relationship. We had been dating for one year, having met at a party. I was taken by surprise when we started talking because I felt I was so out of their league. They were charming, beautiful, star salesperson in the medical field and had this worldly cosmopolitan air about them; I simply felt I was not their type. Because of this mindset, I felt I did myself an injustice and ignored what I needed in a relationship. We would eat out at fancier restaurants because that is what they wanted to do. If I mentioned I wanted to go to a casual dinner place I was fond of, they would tell me they would not be caught dead at such a place. And I would give in; what the heck was I doing? As time passed, I started to become resentful and felt I was not an equal in the relationship. Funny, before I decided to end it, they beat me to the punch. They had met a surgeon, and I was glad for them. With my friend’s marriage and my relationship, it showed me that one never knows what life is like beneath the surface of a person or behind closed doors.      FROM HANGING OUT AT THE COFFEE shop on a U.S. army base in Germany, a young teenage girl found herself as a guest at a party where a well-known, young musical celebrity was holding court. Then suddenly, he started to talk to her. With Cailee Spaeny (On the Basis of Sex, Pacific Rim: Uprising) as Prisciilla, Jacob Elordi (Saltburn, The Kissing Booth) as Elvis, Ari Cohen (It franchise, Spiral) as Captain Beaulieu, Dagmara Dominczyk (The Lost Daughter, Succession-TV) as Ann Beaulieu and Tim Post (Mambo Italiano, My Salinger Year) as Vernon Presley; this film festival winning dramatic biography was directed by Sofia Coppola, who shot the film through the eyes of Priscilla. It was an interesting take on Elvis’ story, besides not making his songs the feature star. This film started out slowly and I was not getting into the acting from the cast. It was later into the story when I began to appreciate Cailee’s and Jacob’s skills. As for the story, even if what was depicted was exactly what happened in real life, I felt I was still missing something. I could not understand what each of them saw in the other except maybe their looks. I am glad I saw this movie, but I had an empty feeling by the time it was over.

2 ½ stars